From Free Press’s helpful explainer of the AP phone records scandal, noting the legal background: Smith v. Maryland — In this 1979 decision, the Supreme Court found that people have no expectation of privacy when it comes to the numbers they call because they understand it has to be transmitted through a third party (telephone company). Thus, the [Digital Media Law Project] notes, “the government can obtain that information simply by issuing a subpoena to a telephone company or other third party.” As Mr. Bumble says, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass–a idiot.” Everyone who wouldn’t […]

The United Farm Workers have a new action alert (7/24/09) about “an education war going on in Texas” they note has “major national implications as Texas is such a major purchaser of textbooks and their state’s required curriculum drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.” Specifically, “the Texas State Board of Education is currently preparing to adopt new social studies curriculum standards” informed by certain “experts” who are arguing that the state’s social studies and history textbooks are giving “too much attention” to some of the most prominent civil rights leaders in U.S. History, namely Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall. […]